If citing, it is advised that you check and use the publisher's definitive version for pagination, volume/issue, and date of publication details. And where the final published version is provided on the Research Portal, if citing you are again advised to check the publisher's website for any subsequent corrections.

Understanding the customer is a key aspect of developing any e-commerce offering. In doing so, organizations can improve their offerings over time and benchmark against competitors and best practice in any industry. eQual is a method for assessing the quality of Web sites. The eQual instrument has evolved via a process of iterative refinement in different e-commerce domains. Two of the studies conducted have examined online bookshops as a domain for e-commerce quality evaluation, one based on eQual 2.0 and the other on eQual 4.0. In this chapter we aim to examine these studies, and, as a result, to evaluate the use of the instrument and the benchmarking of the bookshops on two separate occasions. Of particular note are whether the findings are consistent across the two studies and the implications of the findings for e-commerce practice. Finally, the paper rounds off with some conclusions and directions for further research.

Purpose - Online trust is one of the key obstacles to vendors succeeding on the internet medium; a lack of trust is likely to discourage online consumers from participating in e-commerce. This research aims to investigate how online consumers develop their initial trust and purchase intentions. The research in conducted in the context of Taiwanese online bookstores. Design/methodology/ approach - The research examines consumers' online initial trust by using four major categories of determinants: perceived technology, perceived risk, company competency, and trust propensity. It also investigates the impacts of both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing on purchase intention. The research model is statistically tested using the web sites of four online bookstores in Taiwan. The web site selected by each respondent is unfamiliar. Findings - It is found that perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise are the important antecedents to online initial trust. It is also discovered that different levels of trust propensity moderate perceptions toward the web site and online with respect to online initial trust, including perceived usefulness, perceived security, perceived privacy, perceived good reputation, and willingness to customise. Both online initial trust and familiarity with online purchasing have a positive impact on purchase intention. Originality/value - The research provides insight into the development of online initial trust by consumers, and the relationships between online initial trust and purchase intention. The research model was created and then tested in the context of online bookshops in Taiwan

Sharing activities underpinned by the technologies of the Internet have become dominant in the activities of individuals, business and governments. Recently, such sharing activity has grown from information and media content to wider resources, including money, physical goods and servicescoined collaborative consumption. Sustainability is often cited as a key driver, underpinned by economic, social and environmental benefits. If successful, the sharing of such resources is likely to have a potentially disruptive impact on incumbents in traditional supply chains. However, given the embryonic state of its development, it is perhaps not surprising that collaborative consumption is not well understood in research or practice. With this in mind, this study undertook a four-stage Delphi study with 25 experts in order to identify the key drivers, inhibitors and likely future developments in collaborative consumption over the next 10 years. A key finding was that environmental concern (sustainability) was considered of minor importance. The paper rounds-off with conclusions and implications for practice and further research.

Collaborative consumption websites have enabled consumers to focus on shared access to products rather than owning them. This study aims at developing a comprehensive theoretical model to explain consumer outcomes for collaborative consumption. It develops and tests a structural equation model using partial least squares path modelling and survey data collected from a car-sharing website. The results suggest that consumer intentions to rent are driven primarily by perceived economic, environmental and social benefits through the mediator of perceived usefulness, and enjoyment, in turn driven by sense of belonging to the sharing community. Interestingly, social influence did not play a role. When making word-of-mouth recommendations, in addition to these factors, consumers also take website trust into account, underpinned by the structural assurances of the website. The paper rounds off further implications of the research for theory and practice.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract